St Peter, Sibton

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Little remains of the Norman church that was once here, though the south doorway of about 1200 bears witness to it. The major rebuilding was in the 15th Century. Simon Cotton, in Building the Late Medieval Suffolk Parish Church, notes a will of 1475, when John Swanton left a noble to the new tower of the monastery at Sibton, which perhaps refers to the parish church rather than the Cistercian Abbey across the fields. The strangely non-ecclesiological motifs on the battlements are, James Bettley suggests in his revision of the Buildings of England volume for East Suffolk, a part of a 17th Century rebuilding, which also brought the spire which was removed in 1813, and obelisk pinnacles, taken down as unsafe in the 1970s. As late as 1534, Robert Dukett left £100 (about £100,000 in today's money) to the building of a chapel and aisle on to the church. Did this refer to the north aisle, or to the south side which has no aisle? His bequest went into remarkable detail about what the aisle and chapel would contain in terms of furnishings and glass, including images of the Blessed Virgin, St Anne, St Joachim and St Elizabeth, all of which would fall foul of injunctions over the next couple of decades. Presumably it was felt that the enormous sum bequeathed would be sufficient for the task without awaiting further bequests. It's not clear to what extent Dukett's instructions were fulfilled, certainly none of the furnishings and glass he prescribes survive, but Bettley suggests that it is plausible that the north arcade was built with materials from the abbey, which would fit in with the date of its dissolution. A narrow window in time indeed before the Reformation put an end to the need for aisles and the means of their funding.

So the south doorway takes you into the nave, a wide open space that is ordinarily unfurnished, and leased to the friends of St Peter's for use as a community space. The imposing late medieval font sits on a tiered pedestal in the north aisle. In 1536, John Awcock's will stated I bequeath to the gylding of the ffonte in Sybton church xiijs iiijd (which is to say a noble) which fits nicely with a possible completion date for the aisle. The woodwoses on the stem are fine, and cousins to the more famous spandrel-dweller fighting a wyvern on the porch at neighbouring Peasenhall. Turning east, Sibton church has more brass memorials than most churches, and many of them are to members of the Chapman alias Barker family between the late 15th and early 17th Centuries. Three of them are figure brasses, set in the floors of the nave and chancel.

The best is in the nave, to Edmund and Margaret Chapman, their eight sons and five daughters. He died in 1574, and the two panels of verse below their kneeling figures declare:

Here was my native soile and here
I led a quiet lyef
full seventy yeres, and here to me
by Margaret my wyffe
eight sonnes and daughters fyve were borne
ane here I yeilded have
my dett to death, my flesh to wormes,
my body to the grave.

Here doe I Edmund Chapman torne
to that same soile againe
wch brought me forth and fostred me
prolonging lief in vayne,
and wish that eache man could
this leasson learne of me
here so to live and so to die
to live eternally.

Up in the chancel are John and Julyan Chapman alias Barker. He died in 1582, and their three sons and three daughters stand below the inscription, which tells us that they were all lyving at the daye of his deathe. Above the heads of him and his wife, a further inscription enjoins us to Remember that thou art but dust, when death doth call to earth thou must. Across the chancel is the memorial to Edmund and Maryon Chapman of 1626, unfortunately partly hidden by one of the heavy choir stalls brought by Edward Hakewill's 1870s restoration. They kneel with their eight sons and five daughter on an engraved plate either side of a prayer desk, she wearing an impressive hat in the fashion of the day. Overseeing all of this are Sir Edmund and Lady Mary Barker on their imposing wall memorial. He died in 1676, and was pentioner in ordinary to King Charles ye 2d. Mortlock thought that their busts were accurate portraits. Two infants that predeceased them are on the ledge below, one reclining on a cushion, the other leaning on skull and holding what appears to be a toy rattle.

The glass in the east window lancets is unobtrusive work by Henry Hughes which came as part of Hakewill's 1870s restoration. Half a century earlier, David Davy had recorded medieval heraldic shields in these windows, but nothing has survived. Hughes's firm of Ward & Hughes came back to do the west window ten years later. You step back into the nave through a curious screen which appears to be made of the upper tracery of the former roodscreen. It must have been roughly contemporary with the elegantly arch-braced and hammerbeamed nave roof with its decorative wall plates.Flanking the chancel arch are two pairs of image niches, presumably also contemporary, the recesses painted green on the north side and red on the south, all crowned with decorative tracery. The nave altars would have sat below them.

Coming back outside, Sibton has one of a number of lychgates that were erected as a memorial to the parish dead of the First World War. Unusually however, two battlefield crosses brought back from temporary graves in northern France have been attached to the eaves at each end.